"And the Word became flesh and lived among us," says John in today's Gospel. It is a familiar refrain. And even though all the gifts have been unwrapped and the living room is clear once again, the tree and the decorations remind us that we are still in the Christmas season. The big Post-Christmas sales are an even bigger reminder that post-Christmas is still Christmas. We may not make it through the Twelve Days of Christmas, but Christmas is still here. We are still celebrating Jesus’ birth if only in a calmer manner.

The Christmas story is still fresh in our minds and will always be in our memories. For me as a preacher Christmas sermons are always a challenge. Christmas and Easter. Those are the days you get the big crowds and those are the days you want to wax even more eloquent than usual. Sermons the Sunday after Christmas are even more of a challenge but for the opposite reason. You sort of suspect that the crowd will be sparse. How do you get up after a big let down?

The challenge to preach a good sermon on Christmas or Christmas Eve and to preach a good one the Sunday right after Christmas may be great. But the challenge to tell the Christmas story in a new or different way so that it will still be heard is an even greater challenge. We read the Gospel of Luke for one version of the Christmas story. It is a beautiful story, long and to the point. In today's Gospel we have another version of the Christmas story: short and still to the point. John says simply, "the Word became flesh and lived among us." No mangers, no Magi, no "no room in the inn", no shepherds or angels or stars in the sky: Simply, the Word became flesh and lived among us.

It's almost too simple, too much to the point. So much so that we might miss the point altogether if it were not for Luke's and Matthew's accounts. But the problem still remains: we know those stories all too well as well. How to tell the story in another way so that it is still heard and remembered?

The Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard tells the Christmas story in this way, through a parable: Once upon a time, he writes, there was a certain king who was very rich. His power and preeminence were known throughout the world. Yet something was missing in his life that kept him unhappy -- he desired a wife. Without a queen, the palace was empty.

One day while riding through the streets of a small village, he saw a beautiful peasant girl. So lovely was she that the heart of the king was immediately won. He desired her more than anything he had ever wanted. On succeeding days he would ride by her house on the mere hope of seeing her for a moment in passing.

He wondered how he might win her love. He thought to himself, "I will draw up a royal decree and require her to be brought before me -- and then I shall make her queen of my land!" But, as he considered, the king realized that she was a subject and be forced to obey. He could never be certain that he had won her love.

Then he said to himself, "I shall call on her in person. I will dress in my royal garb, wear my jeweled crown, my best rings, my silver sword, and my most colorful tunic. I will overwhelm her with my majesty and position and sweep her off her feet to become my bride." But, as he pondered the idea, he knew that he would always wonder whether she had married him for his riches and the power he could give her.

Then he decided to dress as a peasant, drive to town, and have his carriage let him off. In disguise, he would approach her house. But, somehow, the duplicity of this plan did not appeal to him.

At last, he knew what he would do. He would shed his royal robes. He would go to the village and become one of the peasants. He would work with them. He would live with them. He would suffer with them. He would actually become one of them. This he did. And in so doing he won his wife.

The Word became flesh and lived among us. Scientist Robert J. Oppenheimer once remarked that "The best way to send an idea is to wrap it in a person.' That is just as true in science as it is in any other part of life. Don't send a gift, send a person who lives the gift. Don't send a message, send a person who lives the message. Don't give a gift of love, give yourself.

The message of Christmas is that simple. It is a simple as saying that the Word became flesh. God could have overwhelmed us with his power. He could have forced us in fear to serve and obey him. But he could never make us love Him. The only way He could do that, the only way we could love God, is if God became one of us and won our love. Jesus did just that -- from his birth in Bethlehem to his death on the cross. God wrapped his message of love in a person, in his Son.

What does all this mean for us, for you and for me? I think it means that we come to believe in the reality of Christmas, the reality of the Christmas message only to the extent that Jesus is really Lord of our lives. We can hear the Christmas story. We can tell the Christmas story. It can be as long as Luke's or as short as John's. It can be retold by philosophers like Kierkegaard or by writers like Dickens. It can be sung about and celebrated. But if it goes no further than that, it is really meaningless.

The lesson and the message of Christmas can only be lived if it is to be real in our lives. The best way for God to get across the idea, the notion, the message that He loves us totally was for him to wrap that message in a person, in his son Jesus. The best way for you and me to get that Christmas and Easter message across to one another, to the world, is to do the same thing: wrap the message in a person, namely ourselves.

As Kierkegaard's king understood, the only way to love another is to live it. Jesus did because he loves us. So must we.